Financial Roundup: Obama Brings New Regulation; Is Wells in Trouble With Wachovia?; LandAmerica and SunTrust in Lawsuits; Volcker Wants New 'Mark to Market' Approach

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With Obama comes new regulation – Barack Obama’s inauguration today ushers in a new era of regulation of everything from drugs to the environment. Leading the list is finance, which could see tighter capital requirements for banks and new ones for hedge funds, oversight of credit default swaps, watchdog agencies overseeing consumer finance products and regulatory agency reorganization. [Source: BusinessWeek]

Obama wants credit moving — Incoming presidential advisers have signaled on weekend talk shows that banks need to start lending some of the money they’ve received from federal bailouts. Also expected is the formation of a “bad” aggregator bank to start buying up toxic loans. [Source: Financial Times]

Is Wells in trouble with Wachovia? — Wells Fargo & Co. may be running into the same kind of debt problems Bank of America had when it bought Merrill Lynch. Wells might be having trouble with the large losses from Wachovia, which it is taking over, and may need a federal bailout. [Source: American Banker]

LandAmerica and SunTrust in suits — Failed real estate financier LandAmerica and SunTrust are defendants in class action lawsuits accusing them of running a pyramid scheme and defaulting investors. The lawsuits, filed in California and Virginia, involve an exchange company which helps investors defer capital gains taxes by reinvesting proceeds from property investments. [Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch]

Another hedge fund manager on the lam –Arthur G. Nadel, a Sarasota, Fla. hedge fund manager, is missing after he promised to make good on a $50 million debt to investors. [Source: Associated Press]

Volcker wants fresh look on “mark to market” — Obama adviser Paul Volcker says that a fresh approach to “mark to market” accounting is needed that is more sympathetic to banks. [Source: CFO.com]

Tags: Bank, Lawsuit, Financial, Barack Obama, Agency, Hedge Fund, Regulation, Investor, Financial Services, Investment, Financial Accounting, Finance, Peter Galuszka

Peter Galuszka is a Virginia-based journalist with more than three decades of experience, including 15 years at BusinessWeek, during which he was twice Moscow Bureau Chief and International News Editor in New York.

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